Azeem Sarwar, Athar Shah Khan immortalized Jaidi

Pakistan News & Features Services

The legendary radio producer Azeem Sarwar, who is credited to have revived the iconic character of Jaidi, lavished the man, Athar Shah Khan, with huge praise as the celebrated writer, playwright and actor passed away in Karachi on May 10 at the age of 76. 

Although Athar Shah Khan had himself created the character of Jaidi for a television play but it became a household name much later when revived by Azeem Sarwar through radio programmes like ‘Rung hee rung, Jaidi kay sung’ and ‘Jaidy kay mehman’ which ran for a staggering 23 years. 

His monumental success on radio upstaged his own earlier good work for television. 

“The character of Jaidi had died in the television play. Yes it was on my suggestion that he had agreed to revive it. The rest is history as they say. It turned out to be a masterstroke and the character of Jaidi was immortalized with our radio programmes,” Azeem Sarwar recalled modestly while talking exclusively to PNFS.

“Athar Shah Khan was a master craftsman. He excelled in everything he was doing. Being an educated man, he was creative and versatile. As a colleague, he was cooperative and punctual. It was both a privilege as well as pleasure having worked together for so long and we treasured those moments,” he added.

Together, Azeem Sarwar and Athar Shah Khan deserve to be regarded as the trailblazers of the Pakistan entertainment industry as their blockbuster programmes not only popularized Radio Pakistan nationally and globally but they also invented a template which was emulated in future successfully and most notably by the duo of Anwar Maqsood and Moin Akhtar on television.